Chapter 21
The Message
Leo sat with the woman, wondering how long it would take for Trent to arrive.
“Trent's done a lot for this place. Did you see the cross outside?” she asked.
Leo nodded.
“That was him. Trent made it for us with his arc welder.”
“Wow. Nice.”
The entrance to the church opened. A man in a brown jacket entered. The sight hit Leo like a blast from the past. Trent looked cleaner and less unkempt than he'd been in Leo's previous life. He was smiling. Leo had never seen him smile.
“This must be Leo,” Trent said, walking up to Leo and extending a large hand. Leo shook it. “Nice to meet you, Leo. Join me for lunch? My treat. I know this great burger place. ”
Leo nodded, following him out of the church and to his old, beat-up, blue-gray pickup truck.
This man brought back memories of weeks after the Change, scared and alone, shunned by almost everyone. He shivered. He wanted to deliver his damn message and go, but decided to go along with things. Find out what was going on.
Trent drove them to a nearby hole-in-the-wall fast-food joint. A small, dingy sign in front, made from non-working, red fluorescent bulbs, said Johnny's Jumbo Burgers. “Their burgers and fries are great. Everything else here tastes horrible.”
Leo shrugged. “Burger and fries are fine.”
After Trent ordered two burgers and fries with two cokes, they sat down at a corner table. “What happened to your face? You get in a lot of fights?” Trent asked.
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“Only when I have to,” Leo answered.
“Have to, like how?”
Leo told him about his encounter with Brick and later when he'd helped his friend against some eighth graders.
A server brought out their food. Trent took a big bite from his burger. Leo tried a french fry and decided Trent might be right about the food. The fries were good, and the burger smelled mouthwatering. That, or Leo was so used to eating whatever he could scrounge in the wastelands that anything tasted good.
Trent put his burger down. “One of my future step-daughters said a boy might look me up because he wanted to ask her on a date. You seem like a nice guy, Leo, but she's not allowed to date until she's a lot older and, frankly, I think at twelve, you shouldn't be dating either.”
Leo laughed. “I thought there might be a misunderstanding. I'm here to deliver a message and return a favor. I didn't know you had a stepdaughter.” He made his implant glow, careful to shield it from anyone else.
“Jesus Christ!” Trent hissed, pushing away from the table. “I obey the law of the land. I don't mess with those things, and I want nothing to do with whatever you're up to.”
Leo leaned forward. “I'm here to deliver a life and death message. Now you are going to listen to me, or I'm telling everyone you have an implant and are a level 10 Pyromage. Just hear me out for five minutes and I swear I'll never bother you again.”
Trent pushed his burger to the side and leaned forward, glaring at Leo. “I don't know who you've been talking to, but what you've heard is garbage. You have five minutes, then I want you out of my face.”
“When I put on the,” he pointed at his wrist, “two days ago, I had a vision. It was like I lived through fifty years of my life. In my vision, just over a month from now, the two of us met at a refugee camp. You helped me out. You gave me a message you would have given anything to deliver to your past self. That is the message I'm giving you now.”
“You met me in a refugee camp, but you didn't know I had a fiancee and her daughters to look after? There's no way I'd have left them behind,” Trent said.
“I'm sure they were dead. A lot of people didn't survive the first week of the change.” Leo drank some coke, his mouth suddenly dry. “I didn't have a family by then either.”
“You've officially creeped me out, kid. If I ever see you near my fiancee or her daughters, I cannot be held responsible for my actions. Christ wasn't a pacifist and neither am I. Now give me the message and go. You got three minutes.”
"You told yourself to listen to your Imp. The game isn't a game, so quit messing around. You've got to play to win, or you will lose everything."